It was supposed to be a fairly ambitious day, sweeping up six or seven HPS
peaks around the Icehouse Canyon area in the Angeles National Forest. The
storm that had threatened the previous day had arrived overnight, dropping
3-4 inches of fresh snow, some of it down to the 3,000-foot level. The storm
was further expected to linger the entire weekend and it certainly looked like
it was doing just that as I drove up Mt. Baldy Road early Saturday morning to
meet Matthew. I was a bit late getting to Icehouse Canyon, made later when I
couldn't manage to get the van up the last 100 yards of the road. A truck
had stalled in front of me on the uphill, and when I stopped likewise I was no
longer able to get any traction going forward. As I tried, the car slipped
backwards and sideways, threatening to do some damage to my car and making me
look foolish at the same time. To avoid both, I back down to a No Parking
zone and put the chains on - good thing I had brought them. By the time I
pulled in next to Matthew's car I was about 30 minutes late.

Matthew was sitting quietly in his car reading a book about China - he planned
to go there for a few months for work and was looking for places to go hiking
while there. He'd slept in his car at the TH for a few hours after driving from
a Sisters of Mercy concert in San Diego. He looked comfortable enough, but I'm
sure I'd have been freezing my ass off if I'd been sitting in the car that long
with temps hovering around 25F. It was darn cold. As we chatted briefly, I
noticed a spent condom wrapper in the snow outside his car door. Then I noticed
the spent condom. It was a bit comical. Looking around a bit more, there was
another condom, another spent wrapper of the same brand, and the empty box as
well - somebody had been busy here recently. Neither of us
had been to Icehouse Canyon before, but it was becoming apparent that it was
popular for more than just hiking and climbing. Sort of gives a new meaning
to "Adventure Pass" which incidently, neither of us were sporting on our
vehicles though it was required.

While it was fairly early, the parking lot was abuzz with activity. About a
dozen folks, all asian, were busy preparing to venture up the trail, which they
did well before we were ready ourselves. We weren't even sure we wanted to head
out at first. The clouds covered all the peaks to about 5,000ft and
didn't make things look very inviting. We discussed other options including a
drive to Santa Barbara, but in the end we decided to give it a go since we'd
already gone to this much trouble. We scaled back our expectations and decided
we'd be lucky if we got to even one summit today.

We started out shortly before 8a, following the tracks of the groups before us.
The first group we passed was a party of three that had started out with
crampons on from the parking lot. This seemed like overkill since there wasn't
likely to be any hard snow or ice from previous storms until we were near the
summit ridge - maybe they just liked walking in crampons.
Shortly after passing this party and another two individuals, we
came to the Chapman Trail junction. We read the sign which indicated Icehouse
Saddle some 4 miles up the trail. We didn't realize the trail split here,
though it should have been evident since all the bootprints went the route
following the creek. Without really thinking it through, we took the untracked
Chapman Trail. With the murky clouds all about, we couldn't tell all that well
just where we were going, but it seemed to be heading more up the canyon's
north walls rather than following the creek. It wasn't until almost an hour
later that we realized there had been a trail junction (our 7.5' map didn't
show the Chapman Trail).

Halfway up this nicely graded, newer trail, we came to an icy section that we
discovered while nearly slipping off the trail. Lying covertly under the
newer snow, the older stuff was too hard to kick steps, and it was with some
difficultly that we got across a 50-foot section. We soon discovered there were
more sections, so rather than do something really foolish, we paused to
put on our crampons. In another half hour we came to the second junction where
our trail rejoins the Icehouse Canyon Trail, and shortly thereafter we removed
the crampons. There was another party of six or eight just below us at the
junction, and another party of two ahead of us that we soon passed. So far,
every person on the trail this morning was asian with the exception of Matthew
and myself. Whether they were Korean, or Chinese, or Japanese we couldn't tell.
On the way back we passed dozens upon dozens more, and only a couple weren't
asian. It seemed quite odd.

As we reached Icehouse Saddle, there were only two persons still ahead of us
judging by the prints in the snow. The prints seemed to vanish at the saddle,
though we didn't look around too much to see where they went. Not to Timber
Mtn, to be sure. There were no more tracks as we made the final ascent up to
our peak. The summit was marked by a wooden sign, a register, and a cairn. The
views were non-existent and it was not only cold, but windy too. We stayed
only a short time.

The descent was far more enjoyable than the ascent, and not just because it was
downhill. We decided to jog most of it, and the few inches of snow made for a
nice cushion under the feet to pad the pounding on the knees. It took only an
hour for us to reach the TH, less than that for Matthew who maintained a
quicker pace than myself on the return. As it was only 12:30p, we had a quick
pow-wow to decide what to do next. Mostly we wanted to find a peak that wasn't
in the clouds, and finally settled on finding some of the lesser HPS peaks. On
our way down through the town of Mt. Baldy, I spotted a side road, Glendora
Ridge Road that seemed to head uphill and west. The gate was open and I pulled
over and so we could peruse
our maps. Sunset Peak was just above, about a half mile ahead at Cow Canyon
Saddle. That would do.

The climb of Sunset Peak was no big deal - one simply follows a gated dirt
road (closed to vehicles) to the summit. A steeper, but short route could be
followed by following the old firebreak up from the saddle. We followed the
road for most of the way, then the firebreak for the last 300 feet or so. Five
or six person plus a dog) had left prints in the snow already this morning,
but only two persons appeared to have made it to the summit (we had run into
the father and son on the way back as we had started out). It
took less than an hour to reach the summit, and we were lucky to find we were
just under the floor of the cloud layer. The higher peaks to the north and
east were still buried in clouds, but we could just make out portions of the
Los Angeles Metropolitan area to the southeast and west. In fact it was even
possible to make out Catlina Island off the coast, hazy but discernable under
the clouds. We made an easy adventure of the hike by continuing southwest to
Pt. 5,595ft, then northwest along the ridge back down to the road, making
a loop of our hike. This was
was the most enjoyable part of an otherwise non-exciting day. Back down on
Glendora Ridge Road, we tried unsuccessfully to thumb a ride back to our cars.
There were plenty of cars going by (many with kids to play in the new snow),
but none stopped. No big deal as it took but an hour to walk the three miles
back to the car.

And thus the day ended. Our plans for the next day would have to change as well,
as the new snow was going to make it impossible for us to do the Iron - Baldy
traverse we had envisioned.
We would have to find some lower peaks to salvage the last day of
the weekend. Sigh. But I guess they can't all be great weekends in the
mountain. :-)